_______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ http://www.MiddleEast.Org News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! * * * * * * * IF YOU DON'T GET MER, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT! To receive MER regularly email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] MER - WASHINGTON SCENE: NEWSFLASH! ARAB AMERICANS SUPPORT PALESTINIANS! THE REAL COST OF ALL THOSE EXPENSIVE FULL-PAGE NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENTS "I went and saw... It was so pathetic... I didn't even stay... It was so demoralizing." Mary Nazzal Palestinian student, Columbia University MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 12/16: Well what do you know! On the anniversary of the Palestinian Intifada last week, what did the Arab American groups do? Anything significant? Anything new? Anything meaningful? Sadly the Arab American groups remain as deceptive and impotent now as they are when the Intifada begin, maybe worse. They have no publication in the US worth reading. They have no lobby in Washington worthy of the name. They are more captive now of the Arab "client regimes" who in the end decide who can speak for them, what they are allowed to do, and who controls and manipulates them, then ever before. The only thing they have improved at a bit is their own public relations, at making themselves look somewhat better to the unknowing. A few years ago the founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), former Senator James Abourezk, was so demoralized that he meet secretly with the ADC Board -- no minutes were kept -- and urged that ADC be disbanded. It was at that point that former Arab League Ambassador Clovis Maksoud -- one of the main Arab regime enforcers in Washington -- stepped in, arranged for some money from the Arab regimes laundered through various businessmen friends and associates to keep ADC afloat. The price politically? ADC must not get involved in controversial matters against any interests or policies of the Arab regimes. The price for ADC? Clovis wife Hala Maksoud was to be made President of ADC, and kept there as long as she and Clovis wanted. The price for Arab Americans? Jim Zogby and his even more controlled Arab-American Institute (AAI) would get more of a free hand to be projected in front of the American public as a spokesman for Arab Americans on major political issues -- and no one in ADC would say or do anything about this farce. In the recent years of the current "peace process" the ADC did little but pay lip-service to the Palestinian issue. Those were the years when the Arab regimes, working closely with the U.S. and Israel, were working hard to create an Arafat regime, no matter what the price for the Palestinian people in repression, dispossession, and corruption. So what did ADC do a couple of years ago at the time of the 50th Anniversary of the "nakba", the "disaster" of 1948? The gimmick that year was "the quilt". For nearly a year persons involved in ADC were asked to create and then truck around a big quilt, one sewn together with panels with the names of various Arab villages that had been destroyed. After all kinds of fanfare within their very limited and very incestuous circles, this quilt was then taken to New York for a "demonstration" outside the U.N. It was a organizational fiasco, and a political disaster. Hardly anyone came, hardly anyone noticed. It was just another opportunity for the Maksouds to go on another little junket. Mary Nazzal, a bright Palestinian student at Columbia University was there and she contacted MER to express her frustrations at the time: "I went and saw the ADC demonstration. It was so pathetic... I didn't even stay... It was so demoralizing." A year before at the time of the 30th anniversary of the 1967 war, what did ADC do at its annual conference to reflect on this major event that had given birth to so much of what has followed in recent history in the Middle East? Rather than a major focus in a serious way, ADC instead held just a single panel discussion about the war. And who was invited to be on the Panel? Any well-known academics, historians, journalists? Anyone even mildly critical of what the Arabs themselves had done, and not done, over this long period of time? Not one. Rather, the whole thing was designed for, and exclusively paneled by, Arab Ambassadors fronting for the very regimes that brought about the situation then as well as now! Then, at the end of the long-winded panel the ADC moderator said time was now so limited that there could only be a few questions from the floor for just a few minutes. And then, to top it all off, when the first person to rise and speak said very boldly, "This Panel is really bullshit" and went on to present a rather thoughtful and spontaneous critique, his comments were erased from the recorded tape of the panel and expunged from the record of the conference! Another example. Also two years ago at the time of the 50th anniversary of 1948, to conclude the ADC conference that year ADC announced that it had asked all the various Arab American organizations to come together and hold an important rally at the Capital Building. Even though the list of sponsoring organizations ran into the dozens, and even though this was supposed to be the major event for this 50th anniversary in Washington, and even though the Arab social class well attended the convention itself -- apparently more to socialize than anything else -- the total turnout on Capital Hill was only about 500 persons. And that included the families and friends of people enjoying the pleasant Sunday afternoon! Things were so disorganized that even the buses ADC promised would be outside the convention hotel to take people to the rally never came. And to top this off not a single member of Congress came to the rally, not a single major personality was there -- just a bunch of unknown speakers from minor organizations talking to each other with non other than Clovis Maksoud as the Master of Ceremonies! Ironically, at the very same time the Free Tibet movement was holding a rally a few miles away at RFK Stadium in the Maryland suburbs, with nearly 100,000 people in attendance! OK...fast forward now. What did ADC do this year on the anniversary of Intifada I, and while Intifada II rages with worse conditions than ever for the Palestinian people. Was there a major conference? Was there any significant protest at the Israeli Embassy? Was there a historic statement signed by important people? Was there a critique of how little the Arab countries have actually done or of how weak and divided the Arab world remains? Was there anything at all that broke any new ground? No to all the above. What the ADC did was primarily feed itself once again. It went to the same Arab "client regimes" that control it, got much money from them, and then paid many of the big newspapers that are actually owned and controlled by very pro-Israeli publishers to run very expensive full-page advertisements noting that ADC supports the Palestinians and showing emotive pictures, all of which had already been widely published. Imagine that -- ADC supports the Palestinians and many Palestinians have been killed by the Israelis! Now that's breaking new ground indeed! ADC always chooses the simple, the easy, the self-serving way; a situation which has reached extreme proportions since the Maksoud take-over. It projects itself as an organization with big voice and serious policies. But in reality ADC is much more like the Wizard of Oz, the timid man behind the curtain shouting into the microphone pretending to have power and influence -- until the curtain is opened that is. Indeed the suspicion in Washington among insiders is that the Maksoud's have used the opportunity of Intifada II to help keep ADC afloat and to further enrich themselves; this after so many years of neglecting the Palestinians with nothing but minor lip service. Many may have forgotten already that in recent years ADC and the little incestuous group of Maksoud friends that dominate it, actually supported the "peace process", saying and doing very little about the Palestinian issue other than that. Of course this is what they were instructed to do at the time, that's the way ADC's benefactors and backers, the regimes and their cronies, wanted it at that time. Those were the days when the Saudi, Egyptian, and Jordanian ambassadors were running to the White House "peace signing" ceremonies, as well as to Israeli/Jewish lobby conferences, even while everything kept getting worse for the Palestinian people and even while independent writers and academics were already terming the whole thing a grand deception and an "Apartheid Peace", refusing to even use the term "peace process" without the quotes. Clovis Maksoud has been doing slimy and self-serving things in Washington for decades now. Now Clovis is definitely rhetorically gifted, that's for sure. But at the same time he is severely retarded when it comes to integrity and principles. Years ago Maksoud helped arrange for a great deal of money to be passed on to American University in Washington, and a great big building on campus got named for Adnan Kashoggi. His own country Lebanon was in the throes of destruction, another victim of the terrible divisions and weaknesses of the "client regime" system that holds the region in bondage and which the Arab League has come to represent. But Maksoud was busy in Washington making grand bombastic speeches, becoming Arab League Ambassador at the U.N., and arranging payoffs of various kinds to those who did what they were told and kept their mouths shut. One of the payoffs for Maksoud himself was that after he officially left the Arab League he was set up in a little Center at the same American University right near the Kashoggi building. Problem is Kashoggi soon got exposed and indicted for being a crooked international arms dealer and swindler -- quite an embarrassment, but both Maksoud and AU took it in stride. So here we are, the year 2000, the Palestinians worse off than ever, Iraqis dead in the millions, repression everywhere, more war and bloodshed ahead. And sure enough, its more of the simple, easy, self-serving things from ADC. Nothing new. Just the tried and true and easy approach -- when they are ripe and need some U.S. organization to use for their own purposes get lots of money from the Arab regimes and do what they want done, nothing else, nothing more. ADC is cashing in once again, using the Palestinian issue to feed itself and doing so in its usual grossly deceptive and self-serving manner. As usual, nothing new, nothing significant, nothing difficult. The easiest thing in the world for them is to meet again with their fat-cat chums for the big bucks to run ads in newspapers that say nothing but that enrich themselves and cover-up for the "client regimes". That's what they have been doing for a long time. That's why they have become known as the "client organizations". That's why even their founder told them its was time to close down. That's why they have so few serious people willing to follow them even for a few blocks up to the Israeli Embassy for a protest rally. And that's why when they do occasionally hold demonstrations few serious people are willing to join with them and they end up talking to and giving awards to each other. More to come about this whole situation, and the role played by ADC in Washington, with the MER Flashback "Don't Eat The Bagels" tomorrow. MiD-EasT RealitieS - www.MiddleEast.Org Phone: 202 362-5266 Fax: 815 366-0800 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscriibe email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject SUBSCRIBE To unsubscribe email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject UNSUBSCRIBE
